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Wednesday, August 31, 2016

As parents, one of the things we don’t want to do is spoil
our kids. It’s a general goal.This summer, we have failed miserably.

I’ve had a few people come up to me recently – just a few –
and ask why I haven’t written much lately. Well for one, I’ve been busy working
and sleeping. Which is what I do most days: Go to work, get home
to eat dinner, then fall asleep when the kids go to bed.

But the other reason I haven’t posted much is we’ve been
quite busy on weekends doing blog-worthy things, while spoiling our kids
rotten. Not with material items, mind you, but with rich and special summer
experiences.

I actually had a kid say to me one recent Saturday, “Do we
have to go to the beach again? I just want to stay home.”

“Tough noogies,” was my reply. “You’re going to the beach
and you’re going to have fun until you’re whistling Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dahout
your …”

I had to suppress my inner Clark Griswald not to
use the full quote (That link is NSFW).

Since school let out in late June, we’ve spent a week in Hilton
Head, a few days around Granny’s pool, and just about every weekend
sprawled along the beach on Lake Ontario, with jaunts to Sackets Harbor and
Clayton thrown in. We’ve seen countless sunsets, loads of stars, a few shooting stars, and one notable sunrise. We’ve
gone swimming, sailing, kayaking, and hiking. And we’ve eaten pretty well, too.

I’ve also been reluctant to write about our adventures due
to that strange feeling you can get when reading about other people’s fun
times. You know. That feeling where you’re happy for them, you really are, but
you also kind of wish you could be there, and then you start to regret your own
life choices. It’s the opposite of schadenfreude,
the German word for taking joy from the pain of others. This is more like finding
pain in other people's joy. I call it vacationschaden.

And while it’s prevented me from writing, it hasn’t stopped
us from spoiling the kids.

The climax of spoilage came this weekend when we took a
short weekend trip to Canada. I can hear the questions: Going to Canada doesn’t
sound like spoiling? Does it, eh?

It wasn’t just Canada, it was French-speaking Canada. And it
wasn’t just French-speaking Canada, it was the world-renowned Quebec resort town
of Mont Tremblant.

I

Pedestrian village in Mont Tremblant

won’t bore you with the history of the place, except to
say that some wealthy investors spent billions some time ago to turn the top skiing
destinations on the east coast into a year-round vacation spot for wealthy Canadians
– and for American families hoping to take advantage of the exchange rate but not
factoring in the provincial tax.

I will bore you, however, with the history of how our family
found ourselves there, because this is quintessential to the theme of spoiling.

It started, simply enough, when my 8-year-old curious and
precocious daughter said in the presence of her grandmother, “I want to go
somewhere they speak French.”

And the planning began. (My parents were going with us, so
the planning was more complex than usual. If you get that joke, you’re likely
family).

First, it was determined that what we all really wanted to do
was go to Quebec City. But that’s too far away for a weekend – even a long weekend
– and I didn’t want to take the time from work.

Then we thought about Montreal, which I’ve been to a ton
thanks to a few years just south of there in Plattsburgh. That’s too much like
another big city, and everyone there speaks English anyway.

A bit stumped, I asked my Canadian dad-blogger friends for
suggestions. Yes, I have Canadian dad-blogger friends, including one aptly
known as the Canadian Dad. And they
suggested Mont Tremblant.

We set out on Friday, arriving midday in the beautiful village
of Mont Tremblant. Actually, if you go,
know that there are three villages around the mountain that all have some claim
on the name: centre-ville, le village and the pedestrian village. I did
research enough to know we wanted to be in the pedestrian village, which was
designed to look like the streets of Quebec City.

I could describe all the fun we had, but I thought I’d just
show some pictures. So, despite the likelihood
of causing mass vacationschaden, here goes:

In our short weekend away, the kids went rock-wall climbing,
hiking, swimming, up a mountain, down a mountain, and rode a luge -- wheels not
sleds. All this while surrounded by
French speaking people.

My kids got a real kick out their proximity to a place where
they speak another language. Their favorite part was saying “Oui, Oui.”
Especially in double-entendre context.
﻿

Concert in the square at Mont Tremblant

“Do you have to go to the bathroom?”

“Oui, oui.”

To top it off, we also happened to be in town for a big, free concert in
the middle of the village by a woman who is, like, the Celine Dion of
Quebec. (That was the bad joke I said repeatedly, because I’m a dad). But this singer-songwriter is one of the stars of Quebec's version of The Voice, “La Voix” for you French speakers. Her name: Ariane Moffatt. And my kids saw her in concert before she became
popular in the United States, for the record.

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About Me

I'm a writer, a husband and a father of four. I once worked in news in Washington, D.C., and served as a speechwriter for a spell. Now I work in upstate New York, teach and help raise our kids. This is where I write about it.